E-ink screens with backlight

We already know two the most important advantages of E-ink screen - energy consumption is very low and there is no inner glow which irritates eyes. It can be seemed that because of backlight of the screen all advantages should disappear. But it is not quite so. Let's descry the history of appearance of the screens with function of backlight.

One of institutes of USA held researches and their results shown that sprouses in many families don't sleep together as at the time when one of them wants to sleep another one wants to read a book. This fact has become a premise to making of E-ink screen with backlight. So the function of backlight was made first, for not very long reading in the darkness and second, for reading with a small level of backlight in rooms with not very good illumination.

It wasn't easy to invent such screen. It's known that displays made by technologies IPS and TFT have transparent screens and matte screen substrate (light guide), which evenly distributes light is lighted with help of fluorescent lamps or LEDs. Screens which are made by E-ink technology are not transparent, so it's useless to light them in such way. In this case, the light source should be situated above the screen and the light should spead almost parallel to screen how it usually happens when the car is lighting the road by headlights. Hence, immediately arises problem of providing the uniformity of lighting of the screen.

An American corporation Amazon was the first who offered a variant of solving this problem in a model Amazon Kindle Paperwhite. The lightning is made by four LEDs. They're situated at the bottom of the e-book and light not the screen but the transparent plate, which covers it. You can not only turn on and off the backlight but also manage it in very big limits.

After Amazon, a reader with backlight was made by American company Barnes & Noble (the model NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight). The backlight is made by 8 LEDs which are situated at the top of the e-book and instead of the transparent plate there is a special light diffusing layer. If you're buying this book - be careful, as you can scratch the layer.

Then, the function of backlight began to appear from many manufacturers and technology of production of them was not different from Kindle or Nook.

But company Sony has chosen completely different way and it continues producing e-books without backlight. Sony equiped the cover of its' book with a special retractable flashlight, which is powered from battery of reader.

It should be noted that the backlight effect on battery consumption and reduces battery life from several weeks to 10 - 30 hours. Naturally, this mode is not designed for constant use.

What to read?

Charlaine Harris "Day Shift". Welcome to Midnight, Texas. It's a quiet little town, perched at the junction between Davy Road and Witch Light Road, and it's easy to miss. With its boarded-up windows, single traffic light and sleepy air, there's nothing special about Midnight . . . which is exactly how the residents like it.
So when the news comes that a new owner plans to renovate the run-down, abandoned old hotel in town, it's not met with pleasure. Who would want to come to Midnight, with its handful of shops, the Home Cookin diner, and quiet residents - and why? But there are bigger problems in the air. When Manfred Bernado, the newest resident in town, is swept up in a deadly investigation suddenly the hotel and its residents are the least of the towns concern. The police, lawyers and journalists are all headed to Midnight, and it's the worst possible moment...

What to read?

Michael Connelly "The Lincoln Lawyer". Mickey Haller has spent all his professional life afraid that he wouldn't recognize innocence if it stood right in front of him. But what he should have been on the watch for was evil. Haller is a Lincoln Lawyer, a criminal defense attorney who operates out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car, traveling between the far-flung courthouses of Los Angeles to defend clients of every kind. Bikers, con artists, drunk drivers, drug dealers - they're all on Mickey Haller's client list. For him, the law is rarely about guilt or innocence - it's about negotiation and manipulation. Sometimes it's even about justice. A Beverly Hills playboy arrested for attacking a woman he picked up in a bar chooses Haller to defend him, and Mickey has his first high-paying client in years. It is a defense attorney's dream, what they call a franchise case. And as the evidence stacks up, Haller comes to believe this may be the easiest case of his career...

Yann Martel "Life of Pi". After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra with a broken leg, a female orang-utan - and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. Since it was first published in 2002, Life of Pi has entered mainstream consciousness and remains one of the most extraordinary works of fiction in recent years.